The illumination device such as a candlestick functions to simply lighten a living space or the like as well as to create a healing or comforting atmosphere by indirect or controlled lighting. For example, the Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 106890 of 1997 (will be referred to as “Patent Document 1” hereunder) discloses an illumination device that includes a plurality of light sources disposed in different positions of one support and a controller that controls the light emission from the light sources to change the light emission as the time elapses. In this illumination device, the light-emitting position and amount of light emission are gradually changed as the time elapses to create a unique atmosphere with flaring illumination light looking like a candle frame. Also, the Applicant of the present invention proposed, in the Japanese Patent No. 2968483 of (will be referred to as “Patent Document 2” hereunder), an illumination device that provides flaring illumination light as above.
In the Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 115003 of 1989 (will be referred to as “Patent Document 3” hereunder), there is disclosed an illumination device that includes a base portion, generally cup-shaped light scattering filter installed to the base portion to surround a plurality of light emitters which emit light of different color tones and scatter the emitted light, and a generally spherical shade assembled to the base portion to enclose the light emitters and light scattering filter. In this illumination device, the light from each light emitter is scattered by the light scattering filter for each of the light emitters not to cast a shadow on the shade. Each of the light emitters is phase-controlled by a light-emission amount controlling circuit also included in the illumination device to flicker so that the shade will be varied in color and other respects as the time elapses.
Note here that the illumination device disclosed in the Patent Document 1 provides flaring illumination light like a candle frame. However, the Patent Document 1 teaches nothing about any construction for preventing the internal parts such as the light sources, for example, from being directly visible from outside when the illumination device is in use. The Patent Document 1 teaches only an idea of simulating a candle frame only with the flaring illumination light, but not how to approximate the flaring illumination light more to the candle flame.
In the illumination device disclosed in the Patent Document 3, the light from each light emitter is scattered in the entire space inside the shade by the light scattering filter so that the illumination is provided while being changed in amount of light emission and color by the shade as the time elapses. Therefore, this illumination device has no function to approximate the illumination light to a candle frame which will create a healing or comforting atmosphere as in the Patent Documents 1 and 3. The illumination device disclosed in the Patent Document 3 is not advantageous in that it needs the multiple light emitters that emit light of different color tones and are not easy to commercially obtain.
The illumination device disclosed in the Patent Document 2 is constructed like the illumination device disclosed in the Patent Document 3 in which there are provided the light sources disclosed in the Patent Document 1. In the illumination device proposed in the Patent Document 2, each of the light sources will not cast a shadow on the shape and the light sources are controlled in light emission individually to flare the illumination, but the globe is formed nearly spherical. Thus, in this illumination device, the receptacle and globe are not near each other. The light will scattered between the receptacle and globe. The candle flame is long, but the illumination light on the globe surface will look as a generally circular image and the flaring of the candle frame-like illumination light be smaller. Also the illumination device as a whole is integrally constructed. Thus, for illumination light with different color tones corresponding to places and atmospheres where the illumination device is used, the globe and light sources have to be replaced, which will be very troublesome.